24 A Break in Cooperation
The last section of this book has dealt with Hong Kong
from the time when it took over as the dominant element in
Sino-British relations to the point of my retirement in
1992. That period has a unifying theme in the efforts of the
two governments to come to a negotiated settlement on Hong
Kong's future and to cooperate in order to ensure a smooth
transition in 1997. But it was a course which was never
entirely free from controversy; it came under particular
strain in the years after Tiananmen; and from October 1992
a new approach and new, more assertive tactics were tried.
We moved into rougher waters.
It is worth pausing at this point to look at the
origins and force of the criticisms levelled against the
policy of cooperation and to ask whether any other route
could have been followed.
On the British side, cooperation was virtually
imposed by the hard facts of history and geography and by
the disparities of power, on this matter at least, between
Britain and China. The lease, which we recognised, meant
reversion, with or without safeguards. A military
response, in the sense of standing fast on the ceded
territory and daring China to do its worst, was considered
and dismissed at the outset. At any number of points in the
course of our exchanges in 1983 and 1984 defiance and
withdrawal from the talks would have been possible; it was
always the easy option; but it was rightly rejected as
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